Welcome!

This is your EMWP Summer Institute Book Group blog. You are asked to post at least once a week before and during the Institute. Your group leader will post additional assignments and post topics. Check back often. If you have any questions or concerns contact your leader, Cindy.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

While I have my own qualms with some of Elbow’s statements,
I appreciate his overall approach towards writing: it is a tool for communication
that should be used in a way that aligns with how we speak.Writing should fit logically alongside
speech, rather than the two being at odds with one another. Elbow’s logical and
user-friendly approach to language is reflected in how he structures the book itself, too.
I like how he sets up the shaded boxes to help illustrate his argument and
prefaces the main text with the instructions that the boxes can be skipped
without disrupting the narrative. I
agree that the evolution of “standard” writing should keep up with the
ever-changing conventions of speech. What happens in reality, however, is that
the guidelines of “standard English” seem to change more slowly. Rather than
adapting to changes in speech, “standard English” fights against the natural
evolution of language. This perpetuates the attitude that new shifts in spoken
language are incorrect.

Writing in the English language is held as the “authority”
of language. I thought it was interesting to learn about Native Americans’
mistrust of the written word and preference for the spoken word, because the
importance of writing as the method of setting contracts and important statements, previously, seemed inherent to me. It seemed only natural that writing is set above spoken
language in the importance hierarchy. In reality, though, our culture has so
long-trusted the written word that we are only accustomed to thinking of
writing as setting the standards for “correct" language.

Another assumption I think many take for granted is that
“correct" writing should be different from how we speak most naturally.Elbow states on page 28, “Our culture, like
many others, has somehow come to insist on a dialect for correct writing that
is different from anyone’s mother tongue.” I have to ask, why is that? Also, how
does this standard work to the detriment of its speakers? Will this
misalignment between spoken language (also the “mother tongue”) and “correct” written
English continue? Will the adaptation of written standards to accommodate shifts
in spoken language always move at sloth-like speed?

Monday, June 10, 2013

Well, here's what caught my attention in Elbow's book right off the bat. I was a little taken aback in the first paragraph, and by the third page I had my sticky notes in full force putting questions all over the text. Below are two of his assertions that really fired me up in the Introduction to Part I.

I'm sure these things are not "the point" of his writing. I'm sure that what's to come is very useful commentary on how speech relates to writing and whatnot. I'm also sure that the introduction is an important part of any book and warrants serious attention.

Point #1

In the first paragraph he says, "I've long been angry at how our present culture of "proper literacy" tells us that we are not supposed to do our serious writing in the mother tongue we know best and possess in our bones - but rather only in the prestige, correct, edited version of standardized English." He goes on to say, "Many people have learned to manage or handle adequately "correct English," but in doing so, they muffle or clog their thoughts into language that's far less clear and interesting than they could have used in the language of their talking."

My disagreement: The "mother tongue" he's describing is romanticized. A mother tongue in a general sense is unique to very small groups of people who all understand the unique intricacies of their language or dialect. There are words and figures of speech, idioms, etc. that are only significant and/or understood by the people of that subculture. I think Elbow is asserting that everyone's mother tongue is universally understood. Sherman Alexie, Edwidge Danticat and Junot Diaz write in a style close to their "mother tongue." They are uncommonly good, and what makes their writing such is the marriage they form between standard English and their own mother tongue. It's the way they make their language accessible to every reader - the blend between dialect and standard English opens the range of their audience up from their own cultural subgroups to the general public. Thus, standard English is not some sort of handicap that hinders people from writing, but a tool (an entire manual) on how to effectively communicate in a way most people understand. And, based on the Pulitzer prizes among these three, our culture is all about the "mother tongue," we just need to be able to understand it.

Point #2

Elbow states on page seven that "teachers are not necessary for learning to write well."

My disagreement: I understand this when I consider writing exclusively as an art. Things that we can physically do without instruction and without any knowledge platform (dance, sing, paint, draw) are what I consider to be art. BUT I also consider each of these to have a close relationship to science. There are rules, there are restrictions, there are things that a general audience will accept and those that one won't. If choreographer's idea of dance is to have various performers walk out on a stage and fart, that person is going to have a short and supremely unsuccessful career. Indeed a teacher wasn't necessary for that production to be thought up and produced, but a teacher would have been helpful. A teacher could have explained that that is offensive not only to the audience but to the performers, and that while dance is a broad term that is about movement, there are certain types of movement and behavior that should be expressed and those that should be reserved.

In this way, writing as an art should absolutely be unrestricted. Writing, when it is exclusively done for the individual (journals, etc), can effectively be done without a teacher. The thing is, we train writing as it is used to present information to an audience. Be the audience a teacher, a scholarship committee, a selection committee, an employer, or the general public, we are teaching writing as both the art of personal expression and the science of relating it to other people. In this way, teachers are required to learn the ins and outs of this system and to ensure students can navigate it.

The lingering question after all of this, though, is What does it mean to "write well"? If people can do it without standard conventions - if they can do it inherently and without instruction, doesn't that just make it about the thought behind the writing? Is good writing that which we understand, or that which is thoughtfully crafted? Thoughts?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Let’s keep our first blog postings for writing about any
part of Part One of Vernacular Eloquence
(to p. 137). You may wish to pose a
question to readers or invite comments on a certain idea. Please also, of course, comment on your
fellows’ posts as you will.

I enjoyed reading Part One and tried to read kind of
openly, getting used to Elbow’s book and what he is up to with it. As I was reading, I made lots of connections to
Elbow’s previous work and to what it’s sometimes like to teach and to
write. I have this particular way of
reading an “academic” or “professional” text—something l call CULLING. I’m usually thinking about a few things most
of the time: teaching writing (FYW at
EMU or writing for social work students), reading reading reading, and my own
varying writing and creative interests. Culling
involves selecting (sometimes non-contextualized!) bits from things I read.

For this first post, write about something that stood out
to you as you read Elbow, for whatever reason, and tell us the reason—what
significance it may have for you. What
did you cull as you read? Here’s something
that interested me—

On pgs. 17-18, in the shaded box, Elbow writes, “certain
linguistic dimensions [i.s., ‘a particular spectrum or continuum of qualities’]
override or trump the difference between spoken and written words.” I really like the potentiality of thinking
about the dimensions of language. Elbow
mentions Biber’s 6 Dimensions:
involved vs. uninvolved; narrative vs. non-narrative; explicit vs.
implicit; overt expression of persuasion or not; abstract vs. non-abstract
information; and evidence of “online” vs. “off-line” production. This last dimension I prefer to call “bliss/flow”
vs. deliberation.

In the spirit of culling, and aside from Elbow’s main
argument, I like thinking about how dimensions of language might influence my
teaching of reading and writing and thinking.
At least dimensions are another way to talk about writing and to notice
things about the “how” of writing. For
instance, for those students who don’t seem to approach writing with much
interest at all, asking them to pay attention to the involved vs. uninvolved
dimension of language might be helpful.
Instead of thinking, then, that they’re just not interested in writing,
such writers might try working with a topic that intensely interests them. I feel sure that I will start to pay
attention, myself, to dimensions and qualities for awhile, and I’m hoping to get
some interesting ideas by connecting them to my own work and my work at school.